Friday, October 25, 2002
Report says single moms in poverty and on welfare declines
A story released today by the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau Press reports that the proportion of custodial mothers taking part in the nation's public assistance programs fell from 26 percent to 11 percent over six years.
"Employment rates for custodial parents grew since 1993, with more than half working full-time in 1999," said Timothy Grall, author of Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 1999. "At the same time, the proportion of mothers and their children living in poverty dropped 8 percentage points, to about 3-in-10 families."
Other highlights:
- In spring 2000, an estimated 13.5 million parents had custody of 21.7 million children who were under age 21 and whose other parent lived elsewhere. Of all custodial parents, 85 percent were mothers and 15 percent were fathers.
- Custodial mothers who received any child support payments received an average of $3,800 in 1999; fathers averaged $3,200.
- Despite the 7-percentage-point decline in poverty for all custodial-parent families, the 26 percent rate remained about four times higher than the rate for married- couple families with related children in 1999 (6 percent).
The data were collected from the April 2000 supplement to the Current Population Survey, cosponsored by the Census Bureau and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement.
